Silent. The focusing mechanism on this lens, being a USM, is pretty quiet. Enough so that it doesn’t draw the attention of my cats. Especially if the camera is in silent mode. The only real gotcha is that when there isn’t enough detail or light, the AF will hunt… and hunt bad. I suspect this is partially the light/signal noise issue but also has to do with the AF stepping mechanisms. When the AF is close to where it needs to be, it can lock on and even lock onto the leading eye. So it’s a serviceable lens on the A7Riii, but a native macro lens would probably be better.

While I complain about the AF, I also found it to be quite a fun lens to use. The color rendition is definitely “Canon” and not “Sony” or “Minolta”. I found myself “tweaking” the color rendition to be more like the Minolta colors that I love. But the details that the lens is able to capture are definitely a win. Gotchas? The edge details, there is some chroma shifting due to the curvature and closeness of the subject, especially when the distance between the lens and the subject is in the 6″-10″ range. But if you’re aware of this going in, it’s something you can plan your shot around.

Oh, one thing I noticed when processing the images, uncompressed RAW vs Jpeg, there was a huge difference when it came to detail recovery. Definitely got some serious benefits from being able to process the images from the RAW(s).